


Make Tonight Slip My Mind

by Phia



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Drinking & Talking, M/M, One-Sided Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, Post-Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-29
Updated: 2016-01-29
Packaged: 2018-05-16 23:08:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5844523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phia/pseuds/Phia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He could’ve said something on the tarmac. He could’ve found some way to convince John, to lay the facts out right in front of him: This is your wife. This is your wife, and she is an assassin. This is your wife, and she is an assassin who lied about herself while carrying your child in her womb. This is your wife, and you chose her, but you didn’t know what you were choosing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Make Tonight Slip My Mind

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to post this draft from last year.
> 
> Loosely inspired upon:  
> [ http://otpprompts.tumblr.com/post/127850301471/imagine-person-a-of-your-otp-spending-the-whole ](http://otpprompts.tumblr.com/post/127850301471/imagine-person-a-of-your-otp-spending-the-whole)

 “I need a pint,” John says, knocking the knuckles of one of his hands against the bar. “Will you get me one?”

Sherlock’s gaze flickers across his best friend's face. John has heavy bags underneath his eyes, and his eyes are slightly reddened. He rubs at the back of the neck, working out some imaginary kink. His blond hair lays against his head, flattened by sleep. John hasn’t combed it out as he usually does.

Sherlock orders him a beer. John lays his palms on the bar. They look down at his fingers together, skin roughened, skin dry. The dim light of the pub makes every person look like they are wearing a variant of black or grey. John’s head pops out of his brown jacket like a dandelion, punched into a mound of soil.

His stem easily sways from side to side. He shakes like it is simple, fists clenched in pockets. He always looks susceptible to any sort of wind, but he’s gone through enough storms that it’s positive he’ll get through all of this.

“Are you ... okay?” Sherlock asks. He wants to patrol the pub, ensure that each window is tightly latched. John might blow away with the rush of people on the street, buzzing with the need to catch the Tube, get home, sleep. 

Sherlock always knows the answers to his own questions. He doesn’t think John is okay. He looks at the bottles in the cabinet behind the bar, and he can see people’s faces in the glass, plastered there as if they are labels. Brown, glinting, dark.

Mycroft. Mary. Magnussen. Moriarty. Everyone’s name starts with M, apparently. 

He taps the pads of his fingers against the bar. John says, “I’m fine.” Which is not _okay_. But at least he’s trying to seem normal. Isn’t that why they’re here?

Trying to be two friends meeting at the bar, stinking of beer instead of blood. Fingers fumbling at the buttons on their jackets, not bulletholes hollowing their chests and shoulders. 

The bartender slides the glass across the wood. John grabs it by the handle, puts the brim of the cup to his mouth, and drinks. Sherlock watches. The liquid is dark gold, but verging on brown.

It reminds him of John’s hair before it greyed. Before everything dipped itself in grey, before Sherlock’s skin paled and silvered. Before things changed - things aren’t the same, and they will never be.

He chose this - he could’ve taken John with him. He could’ve said something on the tarmac. He could’ve found some way to convince John, to lay the facts out right in front of him: _This is your wife. This is your wife, and she is an assassin. This is your wife, and she is an assassin who lied about herself while carrying your child in her womb. This is your wife, and you chose her, but you didn’t know what you were choosing. And maybe you had an indication, a feeling when you felt at her secret tattoo underneath her clothes. But you should’ve known the entire truth, the way that she dreams about breaking into buildings and slipping from coast to coast while I dream of slipping under your duvet and laying my head on your chest._

_This is your wife, and you chose her. You knew what you were getting into. You saw everything I did for you, and it wasn’t enough. I died for you and came back for you, and it wasn’t enough. You have my lifeline wrapped around your finger like a kite string, and it wasn’t enough._

Sherlock walks two fingers across the bar, in front of his chest. A man in a leather jacket sitting next to him glares at the detective’s hand.

“God, people are so fucking annoying,” John mutters, seeing him. The man turns away and back to the bartender, ordering another pint.

Sherlock brings his coat sleeve to his mouth, hiding his smile in it. His pale fingers curl into a fist, fingernails biting into the meat of his palm so he can stop smiling soon. John has always been there to protect him. Even when he wasn’t living at the flat, when Sherlock and his seven percent solution were closer than Sherlock ever was with an actual person - John was always going to be there. At one point.

It seems as if Sherlock’s entire life was just a stasis. He was kept _just_ alive enough so that he could be there when John entered. He waited in the wings until John walked onto the stage and motioned to him with a quick hand, mouthing hurried words. _You forgot your line. You forgot to be here, in this spot, with me_ . And then Sherlock darted into center stage with him, and he was no longer afraid. Because there weren’t just the drugs, the cases, the quiet in his mind. John was there too, and suddenly there weren’t drugs, because John didn’t like that. And the cases were _better_ and John was not quiet. John resounded with the scent of his woman of the week. John resounded with the new shirt he’d bought for whatever reason - to treat himself, or because it was someone else’s birthday and he’d forgotten to give them the gift and he wasn’t nearly as good at socializing as everyone presumed he was. John resounded with _Tea, Sherlock_ and _Brilliant_ and _Do you want anything from the store_?

And then Sherlock didn’t take John with him.  

John is finished with his pint. Sherlock can barely hear the glass as it clinks down on the wood of the bar. John isn’t a boisterous drunk who slams his pint down and bellows for another. 

“So how’re you?” John says, splitting the quiet, uncurling his roots and stretching them through the dirt. His elbow rests on the counter and he rests his chin in his palm, looking at Sherlock with half-lidded eyes.

John drinks as an excuse - his mouth meets with the brim of the glass and suddenly, he doesn’t have to speak.

Sherlock never really thought that John was stupid. 

“I’m well,” he lies. He turns to the bartender and orders a pint.  



End file.
